High school students raise $260,000 for an elderly janitor who was forced to come out of retirement due to rising costs

He is known to the students of Callisburg High School as Mr. James. 

Callisburg is a rural town near the Oklahoma border and has a population of roughly 300 people.

Mr. James is an octogenarian retiree who recently fell on hard times. His rent was raised by $400 which would make survival simply impossible on his existing savings.

But he didn’t complain or look for handouts.

Instead, he abandoned retirement, put on his work shoes, and joined Callisburg High School as a janitor, he had a career in a different field previously.

Mr. James quickly developed a reputation for being a dedicated and hard worker.

His plight was noticed by a group of students who took it upon themselves to take concrete measures to help Mr. James.

Senior students Greyson Thurman, Marti Yousko, and Banner Tidwell started a GoFundMe campaign aimed at helping  Mr. James.

Greyson Thurman, who has a decent following of 2,000 on TikTok, uploaded a video on that platform that depicted Mr. James's day at work.

Accompanying the video was a text stating Mr. James's circumstances and a link to the GoFundMe campaign entitled, ‘Getting Mr. James out of this school’. 

In a matter of hours, the campaign became a sensation on social media.

The initial target of  $10,000 was achieved in just 12 hours in just two days $30,000 was raised. Currently, the amount is an amazing $270,905 from 8.6 thousand of donors.

The students closed the GoFundMe campaign last Friday.

"I think God called us all to do it. Once I heard, ‘Greyson you should post it’, something was heavy on my heart telling me, Greyson you gotta do it, and if you don't this guy’s going to keep working here" said Thurman.

"We knew being in a small town like Callisburg that people would want to help and people would want to support us, especially with something like this, but I don't think we ever imagined that there'd be like news channels here," said Yousko.

"When we told him, he was kind of like, 'dang, that's alright!'," said Yousko.

Jason Hooper, the school's principal, said he was proud of his students. 

"It's just amazing. You know of the need that was met because of three kind kids, but of all of our students who have pitched in to help that need."

Mr. James declined offers for interviews with the media but consented to his story being shared.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1vkiTqWzaI

We are living in an era of self-centeredness.

It has reached a point where photography whose entire purpose was to look at the world beyond has become about the self with the practice of the selfie.

Social media which has devolved into a dungeon of venomous vipers always ready to spew toxicity at others and engage in a shallow display merely for attention has blackened the darkness

We learn every day of the young, especially the school-going variety who behave selfishly and use wokery to feign compassion for others. But dig deeper and you discover it is about the self once again. They perpetually claim to be offended not to protect others but to signal their virtuousness.

Sadly the adults who should have been voices of reason aren’t far behind in this ludicrous display and in fact are the driving force.

School teachers and professors misuse their power and hold over students to brainwash innocent minds. Parents are often left with no option but to comply with demands to maintain a relationship with their children.

In this desert of despair, the story of high students using the internet to help the less fortunate is heartwarming.

It is also great that this act of compassion is being celebrated by the national media.

The students deserved to be honored, awarded, and rewarded.

But while kindness is celebrated, we must not forget that Mr. James isn’t the only one who was forced to return to work at a ripe old age.

An estimated 1.5 million retirees have had to rejoin the workforce, according to an analysis of U.S. Department of Labor data. About 1 in 6 retirees is considering returning to work in search of greater financial security, according to a survey published this month. 

Joe Biden's catastrophic misgovernance which has caused record-breaking inflation is responsible for this heartbreaking situation.

When Biden was inaugurated in January 2021, President Trump handed him an inflation rate of merely 1.6%. In over two years, Biden has ruined the fruits of President Trump's sterling work.

Inflation currently stands at 6.5%.

It has reached a point where a respectable news outlet is urging people to skip breakfast, which health experts say is the most important meal of the day, to combat inflation.

While people are struggling to survive the government is showing very little concern for the abject hardships they have caused. In fact, the government is apathetically looking the other way and supporting everyone but those whose lives they have ruined.

The Biden administration has pledged over $111 billion of taxpayer money for the war in Ukraine. Biden recently announced $500 million more during his recent trip. It has to be stated that these funds have no tracking or accountability measures.

Last December, Sen. Rand Paul released his "Festivus" report, which details wasteful government spending in 2022.  

The Biden administration dedicated $3 million to study hamsters fighting on steroids, $50 million to boosting the travel sector in Tunisia, and $2.1 million was dedicated to encouraging Ethiopians to wear shoes. 

It was also revealed that $77 million was wasted on un-tracked fuel purchases while $69 million was squandered in overpaying government contractors for a terminated contract.

The situation beyond D.C. isn't too great, it was revealed that $1.7 million was dedicated to a single toilet in San Francisco.

The chief cause behind these excesses is corruption. These funds dedicated to any seemingly wasteful expenditure, first end up in the pockets of cronies and eventually in the pockets of the vote for this insane spending. All of it is done legally.

The struggles of regular people and senior citizens are the least of anybody’s concerns.

The Democrats who cannot stop claiming to be compassionate for the downtrodden are driving this gratuitous government spending and some Republicans have joined in.

It is nothing short of obscene that the government is dedicating funds to worthless causes often in faraway lands while 1.5 million retirees have had to rejoin the workforce.

This should not be happening in the world’s only superpower.

While we celebrate the student who helped out Mr. James, we must slam Joe Biden, who is an octogenarian himself, for his misgovernance and the rest for their vile indifference that had caused hardships for Mr. James and millions of other senior citizens.

Also appears on American Thinker